


I've Flown a Long Way

by CirrusGrey



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canonical Character Death (mentioned), Episode Related, Fluff and Angst, Hopeful Ending, M/M, episode 159 spoilers, fair warning Martin's thoughts are DARK for most of this, hence the rating, not actually one-sided relationship but Martin thinks it is so...?, technically this is a one-shot and can be read on its own but it complements the linked fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 15:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21199712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CirrusGrey/pseuds/CirrusGrey
Summary: SPOILERS FOR MAG 159!!!Martin is alone.





	I've Flown a Long Way

**Author's Note:**

> _But I've flown a long way honey, hear my confession then I'll go…_  
~ Josh Ritter, [Snow is Gone](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJZiojEGuy0)

"Great. Now perhaps _ one of you, _ then, can tell me what's going-" Elias - _ Jonah _ \- nods, and Peter raises his hand. The room blurs around Martin, fading out in the rising fog as their voices become muffled with distance, and-

"- on?"

-and Martin is alone on a cold and rocky beach, cloudy sky above him and waves shushing against the sand a few feet from where he stands.

"Oh."

He looks around. There's not much to see.

It... it probably should bother him more than it does. But he'd given up on a happy ending to his story a long time ago, so this is... it's fine. It may not be exactly what he expected, but it's fine. He'll dehydrate or starve to death soon enough, and then... then it'll all be over. 

He just wishes he didn't have to die alone.

But after the choices he's made over the past year, he has to admit that's kind of his fault. 

Martin walks, because there's not much else to do. He'd always enjoyed walking on the beach. He's got a collection of shells and sea glass back in his flat, colorful mementos he's taken with him when he leaves. There are no shells here. There is no sea glass. There is no color.

But Martin walks anyway. 

He doesn't know how long it is until he hears the voice. It feels like hours, but... it's so hard to judge time, in the quiet and emptiness, and he hasn't worn a watch in years. He used to use his phone to keep track of the time, but he's fallen out of the habit of carrying that around with him since he fell in with Peter. It's not like anyone is going to call.

"Happy, are you?" There are layers and echoes to the voice, and Martin doesn't have to look to know he won't be able to see the speaker.

"Not really, no." His own voice falls flat in the dead air. "I haven't been happy in..." Over a year, isn't it, at this point? Longer, because was he really ever happy even _ before _the explosion that killed the closest person he had to a friend and sent the man he loved into a state that might as well have been death?

"You did this to yourself, you know." Peter's voice echoes, and Martin wants to punch him. It is a flash of fierce, hot anger, and he wishes he could hold onto it, but...

"Yeah. I know." He feels empty and numb. He'd given everything to this, _ everything, _ and he has no one to blame but himself for how it's all turned out. His only comfort is that no one will miss him; they probably won't even know he's gone, with how little he's seen anyone since he made his choice.

"And now you have to pay the price."

"Just go away, Peter." Martin waits, but the voice does not return. He sighs. It figures, really, that he should feel more alone now than before. At least talking to Peter had broken up the monotony.

He's stopped walking. There's no point to it. Nowhere to go, nothing to see. Just sand, and ocean, and fog, and clouds, and no one is coming for him, and it is all his fault. And... and he had a chance to avoid it. 

_ We could leave here. You and me. _

He knows Jon didn't mean it, not _ really. _ But he also knows he could have said yes, and changed _ everything. _

He's played that moment over in his mind a hundred times, since then. Memorized every pitch and cadence of Jon's voice, every word and gesture as he begged him, desperately, to run away together. It was everything he had ever wanted to hear, and everything he knows could never be real, and it is not surprising, really, that it comes to him clearer than ever in this echoing silence. He is so alone, and the memories are so sharp he can almost imagine he hears Jon's voice next to him now.

_ "Martin!" _ It is soft and surprised, and he's never heard Jon say his name like _ that _ before.

He turns, eyes searching, and there he is. Jonathan Sims, large as life, hands reaching out toward Martin and face so full of adoration and hope. "Jon?"

"I-I'm here, I-I came for you."

But Jon doesn't know that he's gone. Jon wouldn't _ care _that he's gone. "Why?"

Jon frowns as if it isn't the most obvious question in the world. His voice, when he speaks, is very soft. "...I thought you might be lost."

And _ now _Martin hears the echo, the trailing emptiness in Jon's voice as he says these things that Martin knows he would never say. Of course. 

"Are you real?"

Fog drifts past, and the image of Jon wavers as it raises its hands toward Martin.

"Yes!" The echos trail after it. _ Yes. Yes. Yes... _ "Yes, I, I- I am! C-come on, we've _ got _to get out of here."

But Martin knows better, now. Of course he's not here. Jon would never look at Martin the way he is right now, and no one is coming for him.

"N-no." It's because he was thinking about that conversation again, isn't it? _ We can leave, you and me, we've got to get out of here... _ "No, I don't think so."

"Why?" And this may not be Jon, but it has his mannerisms down perfectly. The genuine curiosity in his voice, the little furrow in his brow... Martin's heart feels warm watching, and isn't that a laugh and a half. It should hurt, seeing this specter of the man he's given everything for, but instead Martin just feels, well...

"This is where I should be. It feels right." And it's not a lie. He's spent so much of his life alone, and he deserves to be alone now after everything he's done. Maybe he will die here, but it will be so much easier to die with this fantasy version of Jon by his side than to fight for a reality he's already left far behind. 

"Martin, don't say that." There is fear on Jon's face, and that feels right too. He would want Jon to be scared for him, if he were real.

"Nothing hurts here." Martin smiles, feeling some tension leave his shoulders as he does. "Its just _ quiet." _ And it's not that he's not still scared of dying alone, but... "Even the _ fear _is gentle here."

Jon pushes a hand through his hair, a frustrated expression on his face. "This, this _ isn't right, _ it isn't _ you." _

"It is, though." Martin keeps his voice gentle and patient, as careful with this shade of Jon as he would be with the real one. It makes him laugh a bit, his own absurdities, and god. Jon is lost to him forever and there's nothing he can do about that, but god. "I really loved you, you know?"

Somehow it's easier to say it, now that everything is over. Easy to tell the universe about his love for this man who had died, and who he had been willing to die for, now that hallucinations and memories are all he has left. 

"Martin, listen, he- he's _ done _ something, Peter's _ done something-" _ but Jon's already fading away again, blending back into the fog as his voice echoes into obscurity. Martin's glad for it, in a way. He doesn't want to be alone, but it's easier to let himself sink into welcoming numbness when he's not confronted by spectral reminders of what he's lost playing out his deepest desires for him.

God, he wishes Jon were actually here. He's so, so alone.

Time passes. He doesn't know how much. He's vaguely aware that something is happening nearby; there's a certain deeper loneliness that comes from having people around who don't know you're there.

And then Peter Lukas screams, and Martin knows, with a deep, bone-shaking certainty, that he's missed something important.

He looks. No more than a few feet away there is a body lying on the sand, limp and cold, all the energy and vivacity that characterized its life drained away. Fog swirls around it, think and obscuring, and Peter looks very small in death. 

"His only wish was to die alone." Martin's voice is emotionless. He doesn't know what emotion he is feeling. Pity? Hate? This man laid out a path for him to follow, one that would ruin his life, but no one deserves to die like that.

Someone is in front of him, talking, and the sound finally seeps into his consciousness enough for him to turn around. 

"Oh. Hello, Jon." He's a bit surprised to see him again, if he's honest - he'd thought the specter was one of Peter's tricks, not something intrinsic to this place - but not displeased.

"Listen, I _ know _ you _ think _ you want to be here, I know you think it's _ safer _ and w-" Jon's voice breaks, and Martin gets the feeling he's missed the first half of an impassioned speech. Jon pauses, then continues in a soft and thoughtful tone. "Well maybe it is. But we need you. _ I _ need you." The last words are forceful, yet still quiet. 

"No you don't. Not _ really." _ It's not exactly hard to admit. As much as Martin needs to be needed, all he's ever been able to offer is tea and companionship, and no one's ever wanted that. Let alone _ needed _it. "Everyone's alone but we all survive."

"I _ don't _just want to survive." It comes out sharp, desperate; Jon takes a step forward, leaning in toward Martin and trying to meet his eyes. Martin looks away.

"I'm sorry." The words are laced with regret, and it shouldn't hurt so much, disappointing this facsimile of Jon, but it does. There's nothing left _ but _ survival, though, nothing worth _ living _for - and Martin can barely even manage to survive, these days.

"Martin. Martin look at me." Jon's voice shakes, and it combines with the echo to produce a fragile, trembling sound. He lifts one hand, placing it gently against Martin's cheek and turning him so that they are eye-to-eye. "Look at me, and tell me what you see."

Martin waits for the echo. It doesn't come.

"I see..." The hand on his face is warm, and Jon's eyes bore into his. _ Jon's _eyes, not some mirage or lonely specter or-

"I see _ you, _ Jon." Martin says, and grabs him by the shoulders, and smiles, and "I _ see _ you," and Jon is _ here. _ Really, really here, he came after Martin, cared enough to rescue him from his own foolish choices, and Martin loves him. He loves him, he loves him, he _ loves _him and it's so intense he feels he might explode with it.

_ "Martin," _ Jon throws himself forward, pulling Martin into a tight embrace, and that's it, Martin's done. Sobs start to shake his body as he clings to Jon, and it is _ Jon, _ and Jon is _ here, _ and-

"I wa- I was on my own." He's surprised Jon can breathe with how tightly he is holding him, but there's no force in this world - in _ any _world - that could pull him away. "I was all on my own." He hadn't known how much it scared him until this moment, finally free of it; can't express how much it scares him now, that it had felt so right.

"Not anymore." Jon's words are soft and determined. It is as much a challenge as it is a promise: daring the universe to separate them again and face his wrath. It shakes Martin to his core, and by god does he love this man. He knows, logically, that he should be feeling other things in this moment: relief, confusion, guilt for dragging Jon into this, maybe, definitely a good helping of fear - but it is all manifesting as unbridled love.

He pushes his face into Jon's shoulder, breathing deeply, and he supposes that should scare him too, because... he'd told Jon he loves him, and that is something he's never had the courage to do.

And yet Jon is still here. Jon hadn't run away in horror at the words. Jon had come after him, _ fought _ for him, _ needed _him. So maybe confessions of unrequited love aren't quite the relationship-ending cataclysms fiction has led him to believe. Martin is quite content to live as Jon's friend; just as long as he doesn't have to live without him.

"Come on." The words are whispered right into Martin's ear, and he shivers. Jon's arms tighten around him. "Let's go home."

It strikes Martin, then, how lost they still are. The empty beach stretches away into infinity around them, and the fear starts to creep back. "How?"

Jon pulls back slightly. One of his hands holds Martin's upper arm, the other looped around to rest against the small of his back. He tilts his head, hair brushing against Martin's temple as he says, in the gentlest, softest, most _ comforting _voice Martin has ever heard: "Don't worry." And Jon sounds so sure of himself that the fear bleeds away, and Martin closes his eyes and rests his forehead against Jon's, allowing himself be held. "I know the way."

**Author's Note:**

> Suggested supplemental reading: [To Be Loved](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21199817)


End file.
